no one alive is you-er than you, especially you, jason
by DragonMaster65
Summary: Jason realizes that they're missing out on the best event of the year by not having years: his birthday.


For Serendipitouscontaminant aka telm_393 for the TGP Secret Santa

Request: Jason, the core four together platonically, friendship themes.  
Story Prompts: Jason in a major role

* * *

 **no one alive is you-er than you, especially you, jason**

"Hey Janet?" Jason asked the open air. She appeared, dependable as always, with her bright smile beaming away. Janet reminded Jason of his favorite toothpaste commercial girl. Maybe with more polka dots.

"Yes, Jason?"

He rolled his TV controller around in his hands. "So, I dunno why no one's asked, but when is it going to be winter? Like, I'm cool with it not getting cold or nothing, but if it's never winter then I can't have my birthday bash," Jason said.

Janet continued to smile brightly as she replied, "Time in the human concept doesn't exist here, so neither do seasons." Jason blinked. Winter wasn't going to happen?

"So it's never going to be December?" he moaned. "Man, that's like the worst thing _ever_. How am I supposed to get more socks from my mom now?" His current ones didn't have any holes yet, but there was still plenty of eternity left to ruin them.

The couch bowed as Janet joined him there. Her face now looked the way that Chidi's did when he was trying to answer Michael's questions in class. Her lips pursed in frustration, but she still searched for a proper reply. "I know that birthdays are an important tradition in 98.7% of cultures across human history. What if you selected a day in the next couple of weeks and I can set a timer for three-hundred sixty five and one quarter days to remind you of your not-birthday again?"

Jason leapt from the couch and fistpumped the air. "That would be so dope! I pick tomorrow. Can you tell everyone else?"

"Of course!"

* * *

Tahani's first instinct had been to plan the event, but Jason had quickly rescued them - mostly him - from that. "I didn't want a _boring_ party. Parties are supposed to either blast the roof off or just be a buncha friends kickin' it," he explained when everyone gathered in his bud hole. "Since this is my birthday, I choose the ladder."

Chidi muttered something under his breath from his spot leaning against the wall, and Eleanor shook her head at him. "Save the vocab lessons for class time, professor," she said. "Kickin' it sounds _great_ , Jason. It's been too long since we've had some unstructured fun. Now hand me that controller so I can school you in Need for Speed."

Eleanor was a great friend in that way. She actually listened to what he said, most of the time. And she actually knew how to play video games. Tahani sure tried to be nice, but she just didn't know how to go with the flow _or_ how to hold a controller. It took a lot of hang out time for Tahani to actually hear what Jason was saying rather than what she thought he had. Chidi might have been patient during class, but beyond that he hadn't made any effort to really get to know Jason.

His birthday celebration would be a chance to actually spend time with them all that wasn't during class or while being forced by Michael's horrible friend Vicky to listen to throat singing. No amount of remixing could save that genre.

"Now even though it's just a 'hang out', I still felt that I needed to bring you something," Chidi managed to say. He pulled a small parcel from his pocket wrapped in brown paper. Jason beamed and reached out for the present. Eleanor took his player one controller to start setting up their match.

Tearing into the present, Jason held up the small box. His face fell. "I already have a deck of poker cards," he said.

Chidi's eyes widened and he held his hands up. "Oh no, no, it's not playing cards. Open it. They're flash cards. So you don't have to make your own - even though that helps retention with the same effectiveness of re-reading the same information ten times," Chidi rambled. His hand came up to clench under his chin. "Oh I know I should have gone with the encyclopedia set."

Jason opened the box and thumbed through the first few cards. They were color coded with icons that matched a key on the outside of the box. He bobbed his head and lurched to his feet to grab Chidi in a hug. "Now I don't need Tahani's notes to study. That's great, Chidi," he announced.

Even though he still looked strained, Chidi did return the hug. Then Jason turned to look at the women. He didn't want to assume they also had gotten him gifts, but it _was_ his birthday. Eleanor averted her eyes leaving Jason to stare at Tahani.

She smiled sweetly and called Janet. When Janet appeared, she was holding two large, wrapped gifts and had a party hat crookedly fastened to her head. "Hello!" Janet greeted. "Happy Not-Birthday!"

The first gift she handed to him was rectangular and only a few inches thick. Tahani had actually used proper gift wrap and in Jacksonville's colors, no less. It joined the brown paper on the floor as Jason ripped into her gift. "Now I thought that it should be proper portrait size, but Eleanor informed me that a, you didn't have a lot of wall space down here and b, that you wouldn't care for something so formal," she explained.

Eleanor leaned over, her eyes still on the TV, and said, "You're misquoting me. I said stuffy and lame. You're welcome, Jason."

The print was of a proper portrait of Jason. However that was where the stuffiness ended as "Mr. Music the DJ" was written across the bottom and the background was in neon colors that flashed just slightly in the corner of his eye. The faux album cover sat over a gold-plated CD of his latest demo tape he'd made in Pillboi's cousin's recording studio.

He turned to Tahani, his mouth open in pure glee. "Where did you get that disk? Pillboi never got to pick it up before we tried that robbery and I died," he said.

Tahani lifted one shoulder, her cheeks pink. "Janet found it in a file of unpublished music and had it pressed for me," she explained.

"Sweet!" Jason peeled off his least favorite Ariana Grande poster from the wall and held the framed album there. He would see every time that he got up from the couch for a soda.

Janet popped over to him and held the frame for him. "Here, this one is from Eleanor," she said cheerfully. While he took the box, she worked on mounting the frame, popping a hammer, level, and nails in and out of existence with soft tones.

The box wasn't as light as Janet had made it seem. Jason let it thump to the floor to peel away at the paper. Heavy always meant cool, unless it was a cinder block. Eleanor looked over the edge of the couch, her face half hidden behind her hand. "It's not as custom as Tahani's portrait thing, but I think you'll still like it," she muttered.

Inside the plain white box was a set of small, heavy light blocks. They were the perfect size to stack on top of one another or to spread out around a DJ table. He flipped one on, laughing as Tahani flailed away from the intense light. "These are sick, bro. I can really up my game and do all that cool color stuff that I couldn't do before," Jason said.

Eleanor emerged from her hiding spot and grinned. "That's great! I didn't know, I mean I thought that you might like it, but… yeah," she stuttered.

Jason looked at his friends, their practical and heartfelt gifts, and the party that was now really feeling properly underway. Chidi had settled into a chair and Tahani was passing out plates of appetizers. Eleanor finally had their race set up and was holding his controller up for him to join her. "This is the best birthday," Jason announced.

"Not a real birthday," Janet reminded him cheerfully.


End file.
